Who's in the mood for a little laugh? Snow tire changeover

[JP-8]

After I got my snows swapped for my summer tires, the service manager tells me "Just so you know, you've only got another season left on those snow tires..."\

I get home and this is what two of them look like:

 

[ymz]

I give up - how does damage like that happen? Bad shocks? Bad alignment?


Yuri

 

[MichaelB]

Is that what's gonna' happen to your summer tires?

 

[JP-8]

The car only has 20k miles and does not feel out of alignment. I had a very spirited trip to the dealer on a warm day and am hopeful this damaged patch is from cornering and not suspension related.

 

[40X40]

Is that what's gonna' happen to your summer tires?

Unless he fixes whatever caused it, probably. (the damage may be old.... or those tires might not even be his tires!!)

Bill

 

[JP-8]

I did buy these wheels and tires used (for next to nothing), but this damage was NOT there when I put them on. The rest of the tread looks fine. The tires only saw about 3,000 miles. This can be caused by enthusiastic driving, right?

 

[MichaelB]

I did buy these wheels and tires used (for next to nothing), but this damage was NOT there when I put them on. The rest of the tread looks fine. The tires only saw about 3,000 miles. This can be caused by enthusiastic driving, right?

Was it the two front tires? Maybe enthusiastic driving but I doubt it (unless you really went mental). One tire maybe, two tires I would think there is a suspension problem.

 

[JP-8]

It was the two RIGHT tires. FWIW, my stock Contis have about 17k on them and wear is normal.

 

[MichaelB]

It was the two RIGHT tires. FWIW, my stock Contis have about 17k on them and wear is normal.

Yeah but you just put them on. Who knows what happened over the winter. If enthusiastic driving wrecked your snows I guess it will probably wreck your conti's to. Hard to diagnose from the pic of one tire. I would check your alignment and dampers. If that is all good then you did it what else can I say?
add..........from your thread title I see no humor

 

[Abacus]

That's not spirited driving (mine would be toast if that were the case), you have bad struts on the right side. See how it's not all the way around the tire, like an alignment problem would show? I discounted a broken belt because you'd definitely feel a broken belt and you didn't mention feeling anything weird. The struts are unable to adequately dampen the springs and set up a harmonic rhythm that caused the wear.

 

[LarBear]

If both of the tires on the right side look this way after 3k miles, and had normal wear when they went on the car I'd have to conclude it's way more than "spirited driving". If the suspension is in good shape and the alignment okay the tires should be worn evenly (±) across the tread. This looks like excessive camber, but how one gets excessive camber on both front and rear I don't know unless you dropped into a big tank trap pothole on the right side.

Snow tires don't usually last as long as all season or summer tires, but this is ridiculous. Our snow tires generally get 2000 to 3000 miles/season and by the 4th or 5th season are needing replacement but there's still legal (1/16") tread left or more and no cord showing.

 

[nokivasara]

Spirited driving or bad alignment would wear the tread evenly around the tire, this is caused by bad shocks or collapsed tires.
Sometimes the cords inside the tire break and this causes a bump on top of the tire (or on the sidewall), I had this happen on my M-B just a month ago and had a worn patch just like pictured above, I still had some tread left though.

 

[VeeDubTDI]

Are they a good brand of tire or Super China Special?

 

[Nuje]

Given that there's tread clockwise from the worn/torn patch, I'm guessing "enthusiastic braking" as opposed to driving.

 

[My_name_is_Rob]

Is this only on one section of the tire, or all the way around it?

The picture makes it look like only a section has this damage.

 

[Ski in NC]

My vote is for a bad tire. Internal cord breakage or something like that.

 

[MichaelB]

My vote is for a bad tire. Internal cord breakage or something like that.

Both of them? OP said 2 tires on the right side of the car.

 

[Ski in NC]

Both of them? OP said 2 tires on the right side of the car.

Would need a pic of the second tire to make a guess. Only saw one pic.

Usually suspension/geometry problems cause a problem all the way around a tire, this had a discrete bad spot. Even bad damping won't cause that.

Hard to explain how the car was driving ok with that massively fubar'd tire.

 

[supton]

I've had two sets of snows do this, just not so badly. I don't think the struts were that bad at the time. Garage said that it happens. Both times the snows were not far from 40k so they did not have much left anyhow.

 

[JP-8]

To answer some questions:

Unfortunately I already got rid of the tires. The other one looked almost the same.
These were Nokian Hakkapellitas. They had come off of another VW and were about 7 years old.

I did not hit any major potholes this winter. The car only has 20k miles on it. I highly doubt I have bad struts, a messed up camber, or anything dealing with the car. It just came out of the shop and all was good (says the guy that told me I have a season left on these tires....). I did initially have an alignment issue after I put the tires on during a snow storm in January (or Feb). After we had a few days of above freezing temps the problem went away, which led me to believe it was ice or slush inside the wheel.

After some more research I am tempted to think this was a bad belt (old age, many miles on tires), and the situation was exacerbated by spirited driving in weather too warm for the tire.

 

[MichaelB]

So where is the little laugh as stated in your post?

 

[yatzee]

my vote is for defective tires. If it was an issue with the car, the damage would be all the way around the tire, not in 1 spot. Even spirited braking wouldnt cause that. I think you're lucky that you didn't have a blow out at some point

 

[BadMonKey]

Those are so bad it could be anything, but I'm betting the camber is off. You wont always notice the car pulling one way or another with camber issues but typically it feels squirmy in rutted roads at high speeds.

Once the tires start to cup they hop and can wear uneven in so many crazy ways. The tire clearly failed from excess heat making the patchy wear issue even worse.

 

[LarBear]

Took the snow tires off the Jetta this weekend (I'm expecting 6 more inches of snow soon), and they were worn evenly visually and had been on for ~3k miles this season including an 1100 mile highway round trip.

 

[supton]

I had a set of Hakka 2's do this, and then a set of Nordman 2's. Well, I didn't get to cords, but a big flat spot, and on the side of the tread (not across the full tread surface). Could be from worn struts BUT I only use snows 5-6 months of the year, and the all seasons did not do this. IMO the aggressive snow tires are either more sensitive to suspension issues or just prone to bad wear like this when they get closer to the end.

 

[TDI2000Zim]

It was the two RIGHT tires. FWIW, my stock Contis have about 17k on them and wear is normal.

That wear on the right side makes me think that either you carry a huge load on the right side of the car, or the roads where you live were pretty much filled with debris by the side of the curve (a covered over tree stump, or metal rod?).

 

[Tureq]

To answer some questions:

Unfortunately I already got rid of the tires. The other one looked almost the same.
These were Nokian Hakkapellitas. They had come off of another VW and were about 7 years old.

I did not hit any major potholes this winter. The car only has 20k miles on it. I highly doubt I have bad struts, a messed up camber, or anything dealing with the car. It just came out of the shop and all was good (says the guy that told me I have a season left on these tires....). I did initially have an alignment issue after I put the tires on during a snow storm in January (or Feb). After we had a few days of above freezing temps the problem went away, which led me to believe it was ice or slush inside the wheel.

After some more research I am tempted to think this was a bad belt (old age, many miles on tires), and the situation was exacerbated by spirited driving in weather too warm for the tire.

I think also, that it's bad belt. Nokian tires aren't most durable, so hitting a pretty nasty pothole could cause that. In Finland, nokian tires are very respected and very expensive, but for example in Germany they play in middle price class. Winter tires are sticky. My winter tires on Skoda are Bridgestone Noranzas, made by Nokian, not in Finland but Russia, good tire, but i wouldn't pay 100-150€ per set more to have Nokian name on sidewall. But this co-operation whit Bridgestone has ended, so I don't think that my next set of winter tires would be made by Nokian...

 

[k1xv]

Nokian supplies tires in many markets with product made locally, under contract. Many models of light truck tires sold in the USA are made in the USA, I believe in a Cooper factory.

 

[2011tdiproject]

I'm about 98% sure this was the fault of the tires, not the car or driver, but what do I know.